Location: Freedom Park.
Warmup: 2.72 mi in 21:53 - 8:02 ppm.
Race: unofficially 3.13 mi in 19:32 - 6:14 ppm; officially 19:33, 43rd overall.
Cooldown: 1.84 mi in 16:04 - 8:43 ppm
Running Buddy
Race Results
This one...did not go well. For starters, I could not have expected much after basically taking it easy for the last three weeks. I had only done one workout in that time period, and it was the very short one that Eggers and I completed at Marion Diehl this past Tuesday. The time off had not done anything to shake my fitness, but it hadn't helped, and it really took my mind off racing and sapped the competitive edge. When the going got tough this morning, I pulled a LeBron James. Only for me, there was no Dwyane Wade to pass the ball to when I didn't know what to do with it. It was just me, and I was left to stew in my own disappointment for hours after this one was over.
Let's go back to the beginning. There's one thing I've done right lately, and that's train my body to get up around 5:30 every morning. This made for an easy start to the day as I made my pre-race oatmeal with over two hours to spare before I was due to toe the line. Run For Your Life separates the men and women in this one; they start at 7:30 and we go off at 8:00. I took my sweet time getting ready and rolled in to Freedom Park around 7:15.
I began my warmup and went to pick up my chip, running into Eggers in the process. I guess he wanted to make sure he got here early enough, this time :) Brinkley was doing his warmup from home, and he arrived a few minutes later as Eggers and I took off for a warmup and to see the ladies finish up. We ran away from the park up Sterling Road and watched as Michelle Hazelton came through first. I stuck around to cheer for Christi Carter, Emily, and Anne Marie and then Eggers told me that we only had five minutes until gun time. The women's race had clearly started late, so I figured they would keep the 30-minute difference and start ours late, as well.
I was wrong. I got to the starting line and the race directors were already giving out instructions. It was disgustingly humid and I was soaked after a nearly-three-mile warmup. I did some quick striders and hurried back to the line. The baby joggers were sent off and I wished good luck to Paul, Jay, Eggers, and Mike Mitchell - who, like me, chose this race over the one at McAlpine at the last minute. Brinkley was somewhere on the other side of the starting grid. I then noticed my shoe was untied. The director was literally counting down as I re-tied it with a few seconds to spare, and then....Go!
When I previewed this course, I was jogging around talking to Anne Marie and not really paying attention to where we were. The course starts out with a steep incline, then levels, then another incline up Cumberland Avenue towards East Boulevard (reference the map above). Despite the rough start I got out of the gates significantly quicker than normal. Mitchell had shot off with the leaders, Brinkley was right in front of me, and Eggers was nowhere in sight. I ran better than 5:40 pace for the first half mile and then backed off a good bit. We turned on East and I surged ahead to take the lead of the chase pack, with Brinkley now about 5 seconds ahead of me, at the back of the lead pack. After a crowded, quick start, everyone seemed to be calming down. We turned right on Queens Road and approached the mile marker. I passed Mike Kahn, who yelled out, "Yeah, Blackwood! Get that hill!"
Hmm..Get that hill... I came through the opening mile in 5:51 and began the long, slow climb up Queens Road...and the competitive side of my brain - usually quite strong - slowly began shutting off. I felt a bit devoid of energy, but otherwise the system seemed to be fine. People started passing me, and I just didn't do anything about it. Eventually, Eggers came by, and he even shouted some encouragement, no doubt witnessing my demise this whole time from a point below and now front-center. A few more people passed me as we finally turned off Queens and passed the two-mile marker. I don't remember seeing my time at that point, but the watch later revealed a 6:41 - 6:41!!! - second mile. I've been known to run faster miles on easy days and long runs. Clearly, that was the race right there. Did I start out too fast? Yes, I did. But there's no way I couldn't have still run about a 6:10 for mile two, which would have sent me well on the way to going under 19. I simply did not race.
I can at least say that no one passed me in the last mile, and when I went by a screaming Kahn again near the finish I managed to pull out a decent kick. I came through the chute in an official time of 19:33, significantly slower than what I ran at Great Harvest on what should have been a much faster course. (Running Buddy even measured the course to be accurate, which is apparently a GPX rarity.)
Mitchell finished sixth overall, Brinkley ran 18:14 - and Anne Marie actually set a new PR! Other than that, however, most people I talked to had a bad race by his or her own standards. Paul won easily but has run much faster recently; Billy Shue ran much slower than usual (but still a very solid 17:25) and suffered from severe fatigue and nausea afterwards; Eggers ran 19:06; the list could go on and on. The conditions were certainly a factor; apparently the dew point level was just below the "don't even go outside" mark.
I was - and still am - pissed off. I'm not about to make any excuses. I simply let myself get distracted the last few weeks, and it led to a bad race. It happens, and as Jay told me afterwards, "it's a long summer." I'm not blaming the weather, and I'm looking forward to getting out there again in order to make some better memories!
Warmup: 2.72 mi in 21:53 - 8:02 ppm.
Race: unofficially 3.13 mi in 19:32 - 6:14 ppm; officially 19:33, 43rd overall.
Cooldown: 1.84 mi in 16:04 - 8:43 ppm
Running Buddy
Race Results
This one...did not go well. For starters, I could not have expected much after basically taking it easy for the last three weeks. I had only done one workout in that time period, and it was the very short one that Eggers and I completed at Marion Diehl this past Tuesday. The time off had not done anything to shake my fitness, but it hadn't helped, and it really took my mind off racing and sapped the competitive edge. When the going got tough this morning, I pulled a LeBron James. Only for me, there was no Dwyane Wade to pass the ball to when I didn't know what to do with it. It was just me, and I was left to stew in my own disappointment for hours after this one was over.
Let's go back to the beginning. There's one thing I've done right lately, and that's train my body to get up around 5:30 every morning. This made for an easy start to the day as I made my pre-race oatmeal with over two hours to spare before I was due to toe the line. Run For Your Life separates the men and women in this one; they start at 7:30 and we go off at 8:00. I took my sweet time getting ready and rolled in to Freedom Park around 7:15.
I began my warmup and went to pick up my chip, running into Eggers in the process. I guess he wanted to make sure he got here early enough, this time :) Brinkley was doing his warmup from home, and he arrived a few minutes later as Eggers and I took off for a warmup and to see the ladies finish up. We ran away from the park up Sterling Road and watched as Michelle Hazelton came through first. I stuck around to cheer for Christi Carter, Emily, and Anne Marie and then Eggers told me that we only had five minutes until gun time. The women's race had clearly started late, so I figured they would keep the 30-minute difference and start ours late, as well.
I was wrong. I got to the starting line and the race directors were already giving out instructions. It was disgustingly humid and I was soaked after a nearly-three-mile warmup. I did some quick striders and hurried back to the line. The baby joggers were sent off and I wished good luck to Paul, Jay, Eggers, and Mike Mitchell - who, like me, chose this race over the one at McAlpine at the last minute. Brinkley was somewhere on the other side of the starting grid. I then noticed my shoe was untied. The director was literally counting down as I re-tied it with a few seconds to spare, and then....Go!
When I previewed this course, I was jogging around talking to Anne Marie and not really paying attention to where we were. The course starts out with a steep incline, then levels, then another incline up Cumberland Avenue towards East Boulevard (reference the map above). Despite the rough start I got out of the gates significantly quicker than normal. Mitchell had shot off with the leaders, Brinkley was right in front of me, and Eggers was nowhere in sight. I ran better than 5:40 pace for the first half mile and then backed off a good bit. We turned on East and I surged ahead to take the lead of the chase pack, with Brinkley now about 5 seconds ahead of me, at the back of the lead pack. After a crowded, quick start, everyone seemed to be calming down. We turned right on Queens Road and approached the mile marker. I passed Mike Kahn, who yelled out, "Yeah, Blackwood! Get that hill!"
Hmm..Get that hill... I came through the opening mile in 5:51 and began the long, slow climb up Queens Road...and the competitive side of my brain - usually quite strong - slowly began shutting off. I felt a bit devoid of energy, but otherwise the system seemed to be fine. People started passing me, and I just didn't do anything about it. Eventually, Eggers came by, and he even shouted some encouragement, no doubt witnessing my demise this whole time from a point below and now front-center. A few more people passed me as we finally turned off Queens and passed the two-mile marker. I don't remember seeing my time at that point, but the watch later revealed a 6:41 - 6:41!!! - second mile. I've been known to run faster miles on easy days and long runs. Clearly, that was the race right there. Did I start out too fast? Yes, I did. But there's no way I couldn't have still run about a 6:10 for mile two, which would have sent me well on the way to going under 19. I simply did not race.
 |
| Giving Emily and Anne Marie the very enthusiastic "thumbs down" with about half a mile to go. [photo by Christi Carter]. |
I can at least say that no one passed me in the last mile, and when I went by a screaming Kahn again near the finish I managed to pull out a decent kick. I came through the chute in an official time of 19:33, significantly slower than what I ran at Great Harvest on what should have been a much faster course. (Running Buddy even measured the course to be accurate, which is apparently a GPX rarity.)
Mitchell finished sixth overall, Brinkley ran 18:14 - and Anne Marie actually set a new PR! Other than that, however, most people I talked to had a bad race by his or her own standards. Paul won easily but has run much faster recently; Billy Shue ran much slower than usual (but still a very solid 17:25) and suffered from severe fatigue and nausea afterwards; Eggers ran 19:06; the list could go on and on. The conditions were certainly a factor; apparently the dew point level was just below the "don't even go outside" mark.
I was - and still am - pissed off. I'm not about to make any excuses. I simply let myself get distracted the last few weeks, and it led to a bad race. It happens, and as Jay told me afterwards, "it's a long summer." I'm not blaming the weather, and I'm looking forward to getting out there again in order to make some better memories!
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